How long did the Bouchrahil fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2019 and 28 July 2019: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,698 hectares (17.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bouchrahil (1,346 ha, 9.1 %); El Aïssaouia (303 ha, 2.4 %); Baata (54 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.7 km of Bouchrahil. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 78, class Very extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Algeria (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

DZ · Algeria · 2019-07-24 → 2019-07-28

Bouchrahil fire, July 2019 بوشراحيل · Bouchrahil, El Aïssaouia, Baata

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2019, 01:29 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2019 in Bouchrahil, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,698 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 7 in Algeria in 2019, of 78.

Burnt area: 1,698ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 5days; 24 Jul 2019 – 28 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 24 Jul; 2019
Heat detections: 108; in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 28 Jul 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2425262728

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high

49km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 4 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Bouchrahil بوشراحيل 11,633 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the town where it started

1,346 ha reached on 24 Jul

9.1 %
El Aïssaouia العيساوية،المدية 3,763 inhabitants · 7.4 km from the town

303 ha reached on 27 Jul

2.4 %
Baata بعطة 856 inhabitants · 8.2 km from the town

54 ha reached on 27 Jul

0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Mixed forest69 %
Other natural land29 %
Agricultural areas1.0 %
Broadleaved forest0.5 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
24 Jul	36.6 °C	17 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
25 Jul	37.6 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
26 Jul	37.0 °C	15 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
27 Jul	33.1 °C	13 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 78
28 Jul	30.2 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
29 Jul after	36.0 °C	23 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
30 Jul after	33.6 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Jul after	39.1 °C	14 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
1 Aug after	39.1 °C	15 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
2 Aug after	38.9 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
3 Aug after	37.5 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 48
4 Aug after	37.2 °C	19 %	38 km/h	1.1 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 17 Jul 2019

After · 4 Aug 2019

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 2 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM10126 µg/m³

WHO 15

222324252627282930311234567

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 108Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bouchrahil fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2019 and 28 July 2019: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,698 hectares (17.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bouchrahil (1,346 ha, 9.1 %); El Aïssaouia (303 ha, 2.4 %); Baata (54 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.7 km of Bouchrahil. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 78, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Algeria (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 14 · 1021

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 14 · 1021.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned